A page from my journal...

It’s summertime, and if you have kids home from school, I’d be willing to bet that you’ve heard these two words:

“I’m bored!”

If you haven’t ever heard this in your house, then I have mixed feeling on what I want to say to you. Do I want to invite myself over to your house for coffee and quiche and get to know you better, or do I not really trust this idea of your kids never being bored and I am just not sure our friendship can work out?

Depends on how good the coffee is.

Anyways, I’m getting way off my intended topic for this post. I wanted to share an idea for a summer project that your kids can do that might make them forget they were bored.

INTERVIEW A GRANDPARENT: Ask the kids to come up with a list of questions they can ask Grandma and Grandpa about their childhood, family history and favorite things. The interview can be done in writing, in person, though Skype, or however they want to communicate.

(Incidentally, I know some grandparents who will keep in touch with their grands through Snapchat. So if that is your child’s love language, by all means…Snapchat interview the grandparents!)

Recording the interview can be done by audio, video, screenshot, in writing, or through a scrapbook. If you look, you’ll find some fun apps out there that might make it easy and fun for the kids to do this. ​Here are some ideas to get the kids started thinking about what questions they might want to ask:

When and where were you born?What is your full name and how was it chosen for you?How did you spend your summer days as a child?What was your most embarrassing moment?Favorite food?Tell a story about each of your parents. What was their personality like?When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?What is your earliest memory?​What jobs or chores did you have to do when you were a kid?

You get the idea….let the kids come up with some more questions that they would like to know about their grandparents. Make sure they ask some embarrassing stories about you, too. Those are always good boredom busters. ;)

Oh, and if interviewing a grandparent isn’t an option, have them choose somebody they admire. Could be a veteran, someone who works at a job that they like, an “adopted” grandparent or someone they think is “newsworthy.”

Have you done something like this with your kids? I’d love to hear about those projects and how they went. How did your kids record the interviews? Who did they choose to interview?Let me know in the comments.​(Unless your kids have never, ever, once-in-their-life said they were bored. You should definitely invite me over for coffee first.)